Lincoln Movie - Your Reviews

[Mike B.]

I don't know if anyone started a thread on this, and I don't know if this is the right place for it but I would love to hear from people who have seen the movie and their thoughts.

FWIW, Here is my reivew. I saw the movie yesterday.

(***Spoiler alert-If you haven't seen the movie yet and plan to, you might want to stop reading since some plot surprises are revealed.***)

I give the movie four stars. It was a top of the line production. The acting was stupendous. No surprise that Daniel Day-Lewis was very good. Tommy Lee Jones deserves an Oscar for supporting actor as Thad Stevens. I am not sure about Sally Field in this sense. I don't think she did as well as Mary Lincoln as the other two did, though perhaps people will differ. She is a great actress and the criticism that she was too old to play Mary I think was not worth worrying about. Sally Field is 66 years old but certainly looks much younger than her years and is still an attractive woman. There are a few scenes in the film that are going to be controversial about Mary and Lincoln talking about her mental health.

Special mention:

1. There is a closing scene which is simply wonderful and very moving in which Thad Stevens goes home to his housekeeper (many know the story of their relationship) with a copy of the passed 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. This is very effective and induced tears in some audience members.

2. I liked that Lincoln was "earthy" in the film as he was in real life. He is not afraid of using a bit of profanity and telling some toilet humor jokes. This made people like James Randall agahst perhaps that a man who could write such beautiful prose as the Second Inaugural Address could talk this way, but I see no contradiction.

3. The film did show a real tenderness between Robert and Mary. Jason Emerson's chapter in the "Mary Lincoln Enigma" (full disclosure: which was co-edited by me and had great contributions from people who post on this site like Donna McCreary) shows that the two had a very loving releationship until certain later unpleasentess.

4. The loud and raucous nature of Congress in the 19th century is shown well. It was not the overly formal Congress of today.

A few "quibbles"

1. I still think they played Robert Lincoln as too much of a prig and too distant from his father. At one point, Lincoln slaps Robert in the face. The film-makers didn't have the benefit I guess of Jason Emerson's definitive biography of Robert so that might have worked against them.

2. The least effective scene for me was in the very beginning when a black and a white soldier recited the Gettysburg Address to Lincoln. This seems a bit contrived and a little too "Hollywood."

3. I wish the assassination was handled a little differently as in that some context to it was given to the audience. I realize this is not an assassination film. And I think it was effective to not show the actual shooting of Lincoln but to show Tad hearing about it. I also think it was effective to show the death scene in the Peterson House. However, the film treated it like a random act of violence. Since the movie does make mention of Lincoln's last speech on April 11th in which he comes out in favor of some black voting rights, a quick cut to Booth saying, "That means n----- citizenship. That is the last speech he will ever make." would have fit the theme of the movie exactly and not have taken too much time and given the audience the knowledge that the assassination was a profoundly political act, that indeed had a lot to do with Lincoln's actions about slavery.

4. The man who played Alex Stephens at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference was very good and looked very much like him. I just wish more time was spent on this event. (I know the movie was already 2 and 1/2 hours long so I am sure good stuff wound up on the editing room floor.)

(These are minor quibbles from what I thought was a great film.) So does anyone elese have a review?